Pfaadt versus Yamamoto was the matchup today. On paper, maybe, Yamaoto was the favorite. Myself, I didn’t think so, and even though we didn’t wind up winning the game, I think I was right. Unfortunately, however, that doesn’t wind up meaning much of anything at the end of the day, at least if what one mainly cares about is the result in the W-L column. Which, in the heat of a wild-card race that we are very much right in the middle of, both in terms of time of year but also in terms of contention, is kinda the main thing.
Big props, though, the biggest props in fact, to Brandon Pfaadt. I suspect that a lot of people, myself included frankly, kinda thought that maybe he was irretrievably broken and sorta washed up as a starting pitcher after the succession of performances earlier this year that got him first demoted to the bullpen and then kicked out of the bullpen and put on a bus to Reno. Since he’s been back, though, he’s been one of the best starting pitchers in baseball, and he showed it again tonight.
This was a pitcher’s duel from the get-go, so I’m not gonna describe a whole lot of the inning-by-inning action, because, as is the way with pitchers’ duels, there really wasn’t any for the most part.
Brandon Pfaaft gave up a one-out Andy Pages walk in the top of the first, but that was immediately erased when Freddy Freeman grounded into a 5-6-3 double play. Pfaadt then pitched two perfectly clean innings against the bottom two thirds of the LA lineup. In the top of the fourth, he once again allowed Pages to reach, this time on an infield single, with one out. Once again, Freddy Freeman was considerate enough to serve up another double play, this one a liner to Nolan Arenado at third that doubled Pages off first because the lineout came with a full count, so Pages had taken off for second as soon as the pitch was thrown. Pfaadt then proceeded to retire the bottom two thirds of the LA lineup in order again, which meant that he had faced the minimum through six innings, despite having given up a walk and that infield single.
Pfaadt had been incredibly efficient, as well. He’d only needed 74 pitches to get through his first six innings of work, and when he came out for the top of the seventh, he only needed ten more pitches to record the first two outs, despite giving up another infield single to Pages. Inconvienently, though, Freeman didn’t oblige with a third inning-ending double play, and Max Muncy came to the plate and drew a seven-pitch walk to push Brandon over the 90-pitch mark. Part of me actually thinks that was maybe a key at bat in the ballgame, because as someone noted in the Gameday Thread, Pfaadt might have been able to come out to at least start the top of the eighth otherwise. Thing was, his first pitch to Muncy was called a ball, though it was clearly a strike, but catcher James McCann didn’t challenge it. Muncy then swung through the next two pitches; if that first pitch had been challenged and overturned, Pfaadt would have ended the inning right there with a three-pitch swinging strikeout. Instead, he wound up having to throw six further pitches before putting up his seventh and final zero of the night.
Meanwhile, our offense was doing, well, mostly nothing. While Pfaadt only allowed four baserunners overall in his seven innings of work, his opposite number, Yoshimeru Yamamoto, was a lot less efficient. We put two runners on against him in the bottom of the first (two-out Gabriel Moreno single followed by a Ketel Marte walk), another runner in the bottom of the third (two-out Corbin Carroll walk), and another two runners in the fifth (leadoff single from Tim Tawa, one-out hit-by-pitch on Paul Ryan Waldschmidt). Moreno singled again to lead off the top of the sixth, and Marte walked again, and Lars Nootbar and Nolan Arenado both had relatively lengthy at bats before making outs without advancing the runners, but they forced Yamamoto out of the game after only 5 2/3 innings pitched and 107 pitches thrown. So we had plenty more chances than the Pfaadt had given the Doyers, but we simply couldn’t get them home. Evan Phillips got the final out in the sixth in relief of Yamamoto, and Alex Vesia put up another zero in the bottom of the seventh, despite surrendering back-to-back walks.
First blood was drawn in the top of the eighth, as Jonathan Loaisiga took the mound from Pfaadt to face Kyle Su Fu Yu Tucker, who launched the second pitch that Johhny threw over the fence in right-center. Two more singles ensued, but thankfully Johnny Lasagna managed to esape the top of the eighth with only the one run allowed. 1-0 Los Angeles
In the bottom of the eighth, the Diamondbacks had still more chances, as we loaded the bases with two outs against yet another FTD reliever, Kyle Hurt, thanks to a Nolan Arenado single that was folowed by back-to-back walks to Tawa and McCann. Sadly, Ryan Waldschmidt couldn’t repeat last night’s bottom-of-the-lineup magic, lining out to shallow center to leave all the runners stranded.
After Gerardo Carrillo pitched a scoreless top of the ninth for us, Geraldo Perdomo came to the plate to lead off the bottom of the frame. He started things off quite well against Edwin Diaz, the Doyers’ very expensive closer who give up last night’s Waldschmidt walkoff dinger, hitting a gapper into the alley in right center field and booking it out of the box for a triple. Corbin Carroll then went oppo, lining a triple of his own into left. That tied the score and put our fastest baserunner at third with nobody out. It looked like it would be the second walkoff walk in as many nights, but alas, that was not to be. Moreno lined out to third, Marte popped out to short in an ambarrasingly dismal plate appearance, and after Diaz intentionally walked Lars Nootbar (I do love that I will get to type that name in probably every recap until the end of the season) he struck out Ildemaro Vargas, who’d come on to pinch-run for Arenado in the eighth, to leave Corbin stranded. 1-1 TIE
Carrillo came out for the top of the tenth, recorded two quick outs on fly balls that didn’t allow ghost runner Kyle Tucker to advance, before walking the number nine batter with a ball-four wild pitch that allowed Tucker to take third, and then giving up an infield hit to Shohei Ohtani that pushed Tucker across the plate. 2-1 Los Angeles
In the bottom of the tenth, we couldn’t match it, with Tawa striking out, McCann singling Ildemaro Vargas to third, and Waldschmidt grounding unceremoniously into a game-ending double play.
Loss Probability Added, courtesy of FanGraphs
Perhaps to punish me for my snarky remark regarding the silliness of WPA in the comments on the recap of last night’s game, the WPA algorithm spewed out a wholly new variety of wackiness that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before, in seven or eight years of recapping Diamondbacks games here at the Snake Pit. Whereas, many nights there aren’t more than one or two players who reach the +/-10% threshold that is our rule of thumb for who gets mentioned in this part of the recap, tonight there was only one player—Nolan Arenado, at -6% WPA—who didn’t reach that threshold.
Makes sense, I guess, because it was a low-scoring game where every plate appearance and every pitch thrown could tip the balance decisively one way or the other. But still. My first thought was to say “screw it” and just let anyone who’s interested sort it out for themselves by clicking on the FanGraphs link above, but on less sober reflection I think I’m going to try to break the list down into broad categories based on why I think they rated as high or as low as they did in terms of WPA. So. Here goes:
The Best Starter: Brandon Pfaadt (7 IP, 2 H, 0 r, 0 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, +45% WPA)
Dudes Who Got Extra-Base Hits: Geraldo Perdomo (4 AB, 1 H, 1 R, 1 3B, 1 BB, 1 K, +34% WPA), Corbin Carroll (4 AB, 1 H, 0 R, 1 RBI, 1 3B, 1 BB, 1 K, +21% WPA)
James McCann: James McCann (3 AB, 1 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 1 K, +25% WPA)
A Reliever Who Did His Job, at least until Extras: Gerardo Carrillo (1 2/3 IP, o H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 1 K, +21% WPA)
Guys Who Didn’t Do Anything, or Didn’t Do What They Did at the Right Time: Gabriel Moreno (-14% WPA), Ketel Marte (-20% WPA), Lars Nootbar (-17% WPA), Ildemaro Vargas (-14% WPA, despite coming on as a pinch-runner in the bottom of the eighth and only having one AB), Tim Tawa (-15%)
Relievers Who Happened to Be on the Mound when a Run Scored: Jonathan Loaisiga (-19%), Brandyn Garcia (-22%)
Hero to Zero: Ryan Waldschmidt (4 AB, 0 h, 1 K, -70% WPA!!!)
Okay. Upon reflection, I probably just spent way too much time on the above. I should have just recommended clicking on the link, So be it. Anyway. It was, much like last night, quite the robust Gameday Thread, with 392 comments at time of writing. By popular acclaim, and also because I already called out the first two ABs of the gentleman referenced, tonight’s Comment of the Game goes to our Fearless Leader:
That was indeed a bit of a bright spot, though I was sad that he couldn’t manage the GIDP.LIDP trifecta in his third plate appearance with Andy Pages on first. Ah, well. If wishes were horses, and so on.
So once again, we go into a Sunday game that is a rubber match, with the series victory on the line. In this case, the season series victory is on the line too, which makes it even more intense. Or something. Anyway. Eduardo Rodriguez, everyone’s favorite hologram, takes the mound for us, while Justin Wrobleski goes for the Doyers in a lefty-on-lefty duel for the season series title. First pitch is scheduled for 1:10pm AZ time. Hope you can stop by and join us!
Addendum: A Thought about the Diamondbacks and ABS Challenges
Per the above, and the challenge that McCann didn’t make with two outs in the seventh that would have ultimately gotten Pfaadt out of the inning at 89 or 90 pitches. Sure, it was the first pitch of the at bat, so there was no way of knowing that Pfaadt would get two swinging strikes right after that, but that was definitely a challenge that would have changed the trajectory of the game, if it had been made. I’m not saying it would have happened, but if Pfaadt hadn’t been at 94 pitches, he might have come out for the eighth, and retired Tucker instead of Tucker launching the leadoff longball off Johnny Lasagna.
And that wasn’t the only one in this game—there was the called strike three to Ryan Waldschimdt to start off the bottom of the third, which was pretty clearly a ball, as well as two or three others when our pitchers were on the mound or our batters were in the box that were pretty clearly wrong, and would have been overturned if we’d actually challenged the calls. There were several others last night as well, that I think 1AZFan1 touched upon in his recap.
Earlier in the season, when the “If you know, go” guideline was in effect, it seems like we were actually pretty successful at using ABS to our advantage. Admittedly, the last month or two it has seemed like that stopped being a useful heuristic, as we saw tons of truly abysmal challenges from players who should know better in game situations where the difference between a ball and a strike didn’t really matter. But it very much seems to me like we’ve swung way too far back in the other direction, so that even when a hitter or a catcher is pretty much convinced that the call was wrong, they don’t tap the helmet to initiate the review. And the team has suffered for it.
Not sure what is to be done about that, really—this is a new aspect of the game, and one that players and managers at the major league level are still learning how to handle and make use of. But something does need to be done, because we’re giving away balls and strikes and outs multiple times a day these days. And I for one would rather see our players challenge and be wrong than to be so reluctant to tap the helmet that bad calls wind up standing when they should be overturned.
I dunno. My two cents. Take it for what it’s worth.
As always, thanks for reading, and as always, go Diamondbacks!
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